Chita is a Russian city in Eastern Siberia, in close proximity to China. Founded in 1820, it was a small town with a population not exceeding 10,000 people until the early 1900s. Since it was close to Mongolia and China the architectural and cultural mix was also diverse. Now this city has 300,000 people or more and looks like any other small Russian city, but in days long past it was a picturesque thing to view. Here are some of the unique photos of this city from those early days when it was nice and small. Some of these photos have English captions from the times they were printed!